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VALLUVANADROADTRANSPORTCORPORATION

The response to Valluvanadan posts on this blog have been amazing , hence i was pondering on various Valluvanadan topics and when i saw those majestic Mayilvahanam buses in their repair yard at shornur it struck me … why not them??. our region has always been the bastion of Private buses , though many of the iconic bus companies else where went extinct we still have those old names on our roads – Mayilvahanams , Karippals etc .

The history of Valluvanad transport must start with the pioneers , The chemarikkat family of Shornur and their CTS and mayilvahanam buses . They have long distance buses to local buses all under the same brand . Almost all buses on every other route around this region was a mayilvahanam – whether it be green/blue , red/white , The Prakash travels , The Circular buses that circled Cherpulassery, Pattambi,Shornur and Ottapalam. Pattambi- Valancheri route and Perinthalmanna- Ottapalam route were the home turf of the green/blue buses ; prakash travels owned the mannarkad – shornur route ; on the Palakkad – Guruvayoor and the Palakkad – Kozhikode routes ran the limited stops and fast passengers. Though largely reduced in number mayilvahanams still run on the Palakkad – Guruvayoor route with new liveries and modern Karur bodies.

A trip to Thrissur was about Maya , Karippal and Rajeev buses . The Ottapalam- Thrissur route was their bastion. The blue colored Karippal buses connected Ottapalam , Cherpulassery and Pattambi to Thrissur . Maya buses ran as far as Kodungallur in the south and there was even a Rajeev bus from Kodungallur to Mannarkad. Today only Karippal remains and they still run the iconic Kongad – Thrissur Sowgandhikam , which is the fastest bus in the route.The routes to Thrissur was also peppered with Balakrishna buses from Guruvayoor and Dhanalakshmi from Kodungallur.

The Palakkad Kozhikode route was synonymous with KTC buses from Kozhikode. Those red buses were the fastest in the region and were usually feared for their overtakes. KTC is long gone and Private buses have been withdrawing from the route due to tough competition from the KSRTC.

There is a lobby that constantly complain about KSRTC being a loss making enterprise and wants private buses to be taken off our roads permanently for making the Government run company profitable . The Travancore group subtly forget the fact that these private buses where the only means of transport we the people of Malabar had when KSRTC was focusing only on regions south of Thrissur. Let us hope that this pressure group which plays on public emotions not push our private bus heritage into the dust bin for their sake.